Lokas
Lokas was a term used by the Itarajana mages to collectively describe the four Pillars of their magick: Naraka, the realm of Torment; Preta, the realm of the dead; Triyagyoni, the realm of animals; and Deva, the realm of the gods. Overview Perhaps the Craft’s ancient beliefs presaged contemporary Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, or the Itarajana are not as pure as they believe and borrowed these religions’ structure to describe their discoveries. They call their Pillars Lokas: “worlds” that represent realms of existence, incarnations, and spiritual states. In addition to the four Lokas of the Pillars, Itarajana recognize the Manusya Loka of human existence and the Asura Loka, where it consigns the karmic states of earthly supernatural beings, including vampires. Bereft of the broad perspective that more evolved magi learn, Itarajana magic lacks several capabilities. They cannot easily reshape lifeless matter (including Cainite bodies) or peer into the future, depriving them of easy access to wealth and supernatural foresight. That’s the price of dedication to the ancient ways, and it shapes their worldview and relationship with the True Hand . (Note that these pillars are not in alphabetical order, to replicate the hierarchy of worlds in the cosmology.) 'Naraka '(The Torment World) Imprisoned in the Naraka realm, these creatures are the darkest incarnations of the Wheel. They suffer and inflict suffering in realms of fire, frost, and pain. The Naraka hells aren’t just places, but accursed spiritual states. The sorcerer takes on infernal karma for a time, utilizing dark powers to flay imperfection and sin from the world. *• The sorcerer can sense infernal influence, malefic magic, and imminent destructive forces such as bombs and oncoming storms. He can bulwark his consciousness against possession and his body against the elements, though not open flame and the most extreme cold. *•• Itarajana can call the fiends of Nakara but can’t compel them to appear, and the fiends may not be free to answer. They inflict minor curses capable of hindering enemies or inflicting bashing damage, and can generate uncomfortable levels of heat and cold. Such a sorcerer senses the weak points of objects (where they’re easy to destroy) and people (where their Natures fail them). *••• The sorcerer can convert any heat source into open flame, or intensify cold to create killing frost. This inflicts lethal damage, though without a source of heat or cold to work with (Itarajana magic treats cold as a force, not an absence of heat), they must be created using the ability of Deva •• to create elements with Quintessence. He can summon a fiend if he knows its name, and unless it is chained, the monster must appear. He can inflict curses that affect objects, so machines fail catastrophically and blades break. *•••• An Itarajana can now convert any significant source of energy into intense fire and cold. He can command it to rain fire or ice spikes. He can bind a fiend to a place, force it to possess a particular person, or command it to do his bidding. He can inspire self-destructive behavior in others so that they act on their darkest impulses. His curses wither limbs and crops, and even kill with disease, inflicting aggravated damage. He can break nigh-unbreakable objects. *••••• The sorcerer can summon metal-melting firestorms or freeze air. He can release fiends from divine imprisonment and visit locked hell realms. He can formulate abstract curses such as “May you never find love,” or cause a curse to affect generations. His destructive capabilities can affect concepts, though killing an idea held by millions would require more power than any mortal can muster. Specialties: Destruction, Curses, Heat, and Cold 'Preta '(The Underworld) The Preta Loka includes the Shadowlands, Tempest, and outer edges of the afterlife — go too deep, and you enter the Naraka Loka. Beyond holding ghosts and forgotten things, this realm contains the forces of decay. The Itarajana learns to travel the lands of the dead and channel its entropic energies to any realm. *• The sorcerer senses recent deaths. He can peer into the eyes of a corpse to ascertain the manner of its passing. He can see and hear the Shadowlands, though he can’t yet touch them. He can sense when rhythms are about to be broken and systems are about to collapse. He can protect himself against assaults reaching from the other side of the Shadowlands or enter a deathlike trance, where only sorcery and supernatural insight can determine that he lives. *•• The Itarajana can send his voice and touch across the Shadowlands, He can climb objects there (and appears to float in mid-air) or strike ghosts. He can shape chaotic phenomena such as local, ordinary weather, the roll of the dice, and even the storms of the Underworld’s Tempest. The last affords him protection from the storms of the dead. He can call distant ghosts, though they need not appear and he cannot directly communicate. They feel a generalized keening and know its source. *••• The sorcerer can enter the Shadowlands as a false ghost. His body falls into unbreathing stillness, and he wears a ghostly Corpus, not flesh — only combining this with Triyagyoni ••• or higher allows him to bodily enter the Underworld. He can now summon ghosts against their will, but he cannot bind them to service. His influence can accelerate rot and corrosion in non-living matter, or ward off decay to keep blades sharp and bodies perfectly preserved. He can even reshape ghosts, smithing them into objects after the fashion of the wraith-smiths, or tear apart a ghost’s Corpus with a direct magical assault that inflicts aggravated damage. *•••• Itarajana adepts can distort space in the Tempest, crossing continents by taking a shortcut through the Sea of Shadows. They can put another into the death-trance that opens the way to the Underworld, conjure Tempest storms, or congeal its inchoate substance into weapons. They can thin the Shroud between life and death, easing passage for ghosts who wish to influence the breathing world. They can create new fetters for wraiths or destroy connections to old ones. Picking at the chaos in living systems, they can induce rapid aging and infirmity. They can command ghosts to do their bidding, but doing so tends to bring out their darker impulses. *••••• A master of the Art of Death can force the recently dead to become ghosts and permanently alter them into any shape or spiritual makeup he desires. He can give ghosts and Stygian artifacts substance in the living world, or consign objects to the Underworld. He can influence very large systems that contain random elements, bombarding cities with hail, winning lotteries, and shaping economic trends, though these may all require additional Abilities. The larger the effect, however, the more likely other supernatural beings will notice. Specialties: Chaos, Death, Ghosts, the Shadowlands 'Triyagyoni '(The Animalistic World) The Triyagyoni Loka includes the natural world and the spiritual reflections that inhabit what modern mages call the Middle Umbra. Werewolves are natives of this domain who resent all intruding sorcerers, but especially despise those who consort with vampires and the Underworld. The Itarajana considers nonhuman life categorically inferior to humanity, since they believe humans reincarnate as animals after rejecting enlightenment for base pleasures. However, as humans are carnal beings, this Loka includes the study of mortal flesh. *• The Itarajana can perceive, but not enter, the Middle Umbra. He can sense the health of humans, animals, and plants, and with effort, analyze ecosystems. He can regulate autonomic physical functions, read the presence of primal emotions such as terror, rage, and lust, or deduce the archetypal nature of a spirit. *•• The sorcerer can call spirits to his location, but can’t compel them to come. He can rouse the sleeping spirits within inanimate objects and thin the Gauntlet between worlds, making it easier for spirits to influence the material realm. He can physically interact with spirits to caress and strike them without crossing over, but when he does so, they can touch him as well. He can command what he considers to be humbler forms of life, such as insects or other arthropods and worms, but can only inflame fight-or-flight instincts in more complex organisms, excluding humans. He can heal bashing damage in others or lethal damage in himself. *••• The sorcerer can ban spirits from an area or force them to appear, though he cannot control them when they arrive. He can physically cross the Gauntlet to travel through the Middle Umbra. He can utterly command mammals and other “higher” organisms or exaggerate instinctual emotions in humans. He can mutate plants or manipulate humans and animals to enhance or degrade their Physical Attributes. He can grant them new capabilities inspired by natural animals, such as claws or the ability to see in the dark. He can heal any form of damage in himself or others, though it costs one point of Quintessence per spellcasting roll to heal aggravated wounds. Finally, he can attack the energetic foundations of living beings to inflict aggravated damage, but this also costs one point of Quintessence per spellcasting roll. Note that physical enhancements or new abilities tax the subject’s life force, and either cost one point of Quintessence per day to maintain, or inflict one level of aggravated damage instead. *•••• The Itarajana can command spirits to do his bidding, bind them to a place or object, or force them to possess a target. He can open gates into the Middle Umbra to allow many beings may pass through. He can turn animals into humans and vice versa. He can control human emotions based on physiological reactions with great precision to inspire sexual desire, terror, and disgust. He cannot impose specific thoughts, however. *••••• The sorcerer can manipulate life with the disgusting precision of a Vicissitude adept, merging multiple life forms and molding flesh like clay. He can transform material life into spirits and vice versa. Alternatively, using other Pillars, he can incarnate himself or other targets into living flames and shadows, or demons and ghosts. He can alter a spirit’s archetype, appearance, and capabilities. He can even create living beings and spirits from nothing by spending Quintessence and utilizing Deva •••. New spirits can think as other spirits do, but Itarajana cannot create sapient living beings from nothing without Deva •••••. Specialties: Nature, the Middle Umbra, Passions, Spirits 'Deva '(The Divine World) Itarajana believe that the gods not only represent cosmic forces, but possible incarnations. A sorcerer can become a god in the next life or, through self-purification, merge with one. Moksa, or final enlightenment, consists of uniting oneself with the forces of creation and destruction, so that one becomes a mover of the Wheel instead of being propelled by its karma. The gods safeguard Ojas, the power others call Quintessence, and dwell in astral Deva-realms of spiritual refinement from which they direct the cycle of creation and destruction. They dwell in many places at once, in many avatars, traveling through the connections between all things. *• The sorcerer can sense concentrations of Quintessence, as well as when it has been recently disturbed by supernatural forces. He can peer into the near astral reaches to see travelers (such as those using the Auspex to astrally project) and thought-forms. He can strengthen his own consciousness to resist mental influence and distractions. He can sense other minds or read auras like a vampire exercising Auspex for the same purpose. *•• Itarajana learn to telepathically communicate with willing partners. They can manipulate a target’s emotions. The sorcerer understands how to channel Quintessence so that, in conjunction with other Pillars, he can convert it into non-living material forms at the cost of one point of Quintessence per spellcasting roll. (Itarajana cannot learn to create solid matter this way, but can create fire and ice utilizing the Naraka Loka.) He can use sympathetic magic to peer into distant locations or conceal targets from such surveillance. He can spend a point of Quintessence to charge a weapon with power so that it inflicts aggravated damage when it strikes, or enchant objects so that they release a spell upon performing a prearranged action — but once the spell gets unleashed, the object loses its magic. *••• The sorcerer can now forcibly impose telepathic communication. He can stride across sympathetic connections, teleporting from place to place. He can ban targets from entering a place through magic or ordinary travel, though broadening this ban to a class of targets instead of individuals may require the use of other Pillars. He can charge a living being so that its natural attacks inflict aggravated damage, or grant it a temporary enchantment, as he could do to objects using the previous rank. With Triyagyoni •••••, he can create living things and spirits out of nothing. The last two functions require one point of Quintessence per spellcasting roll. Finally, he can pull Quintessence out of living things, similar to a vampire consuming blood. Each point taken inflicts one point of lethal damage. *•••• The sorcerer can invoke divine authority to issue mental commands, emulating the Dominate Discipline. He can send his consciousness from his body, similar to an astrally projecting vampire, or enhance his Mental or Social Attributes. He can now bind permanent spells to objects. The wielder performs a required gesture, spends a point of Quintessence, and rolls a dice pool arranged ahead of time when designing the artifact. The sorcerer may store Quintessence in an object for this purpose, or to power other spells. He can create doorways in space so that others can walk shortcuts along sympathetic ties. *••••• The Itarajana can erase a consciousness, rewrite it, or create it from nothing, though this last function requires one point of Quintessence per spellcasting roll. He can astrally project without a cord binding him to his body, and can even survive his body’s death — for the spell’s duration. On a darker note, he can suppress and (by making the spell permanent) even destroy another sorcerer’s Foundation. Like a god, he can distort distance and appear in multiple locations. He can enchant living beings with permanent spells using the same rules as objects. Finally, he can dissolve living things and objects into pure Quintessence. This causes them to vanish, but the sorcerer can consume some of the power so released. Specialties: Creation, Correspondences, Fate, Thought References *VTM: The Black Hand: A Guide to the Tal'Mahe'Ra, p. 147-151 Category:Dark Ages: Mage glossary Category:Vampire: The Masquerade glossary